


we will be found (come find me)

by ninemoons42



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gift Exchange, Gift Work, Holding Hands, Holiday Fic Exchange, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mission Fic, Puppy Love, Rescue Missions, Rescuing Prompto Argentum, a year in the life, unexpected rescue missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: PART ONE: Sometimes the hardest truth to understand is the one that's been right in your face for all this time.But then, if you're fighting a soul-sucking war, some exceptions may be made.(Or, the story of how Nyx Ulric finally fell in love.)PART TWO: Sometimes it takes a small conversation and a small encounter to start understanding the big world, and the grown-up one.(Or, the story of how Prompto Argentum found his person.)





	1. two soldiers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyLarkFrand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLarkFrand/gifts).



> First time writing this wonderful pairing -- I'm thinking I may not have made a complete hash of it :D

The world is a blur, and his ears are still ringing, and he’s trying to figure out whether the mutter in the distance is actual thunder, an actual storm on the move, or just the unhappy growl of his stomach because he can’t actually remember when he’d had something substantial to eat, and he really doesn’t know where he’s putting his feet any more and -- the crack in the sidewalk catches him completely by surprise -- he nearly thinks he might have to warp just to avoid the embarrassment of falling flat onto his face, but -- there’s a hand catching his wrist, stopping him, pulling him back up so suddenly he can feel the beads in his braids swinging for a few moments afterwards.

“Easy,” and that’s a lopsided grin, that’s the blood-bruise in the white of her eyes, that’s the singed smoking ends of Crowe’s hair. Her arm with its torn sleeve and its grimy bandages wound clumsily from wrist to shoulder. “Some hero you are when you’re right here on the ground and there’s no one looking.”

“Wouldn’t be me otherwise,” is all he can muster, all the words he’s got for her because his heart is still hammering wildfire against his ribs. 

“Yeah. Gotta fail somewhere, right?” But the sharpness in her words falls away mid-syllable and all that’s left is the fond acerbity of her, the rough sweetness of her company, and they’ve been friends for all their lives and he’s still grateful to Ramuh for her, for the plain good common sense that burns her as brightly as her borrowed magic does, and he gets himself upright and situated on his own two feet and he pulls her into a sideways hug, and shakes her. 

“Get,” he mutters, pressing a swift kiss to her cheek. “You have someone waiting for you at home. Go show themselves to them and I don’t want to see you for the next three days.”

“See you for dinner tomorrow then,” is her retort, sly and maybe a little hopeful, that she follows up with a kiss to his temple -- she has to crane up onto her ragged boots to finish the movement -- and then he watches as she staggers into the restless night, into the straggling remaining streams of far-too-late movement. 

Men and women in braids, in beads, many wearing little faded ink-marks in their skin, flowing all around him still, where he remains on the street corner and tries to remember where he is. 

Remember who he is.

Because this is ridiculous, isn’t it? Why should there still be such a difference between the way he lives, out in the field with the rest of the Kingsglaive, with the rest of his -- his people? What is he to them anyway, with a rank-stripe that he hasn’t even had time to sew onto his coat, with the strange unnatural familiarity that comes with giving them orders -- the strange unnatural rawness that comes with them following those orders?

Someone shoves past him with no more than an annoyed lilt of an insult -- he returns the insult under his breath, that’s proper, that’s how these things go -- and then he finally makes himself move, again.

Unstable as he is, shaken as he is, every step he takes feels like the fearful suspended instant from earlier, repeating, repeating. The fearful breathless wait, before he could regain his feet, before he could remember how to stand, and it feels like the earth is waiting for him to fall again, so it could open up and -- swallow him whole.

Scrum of people rushing into -- he almost recognizes the paper-chains plastered into the door, the glare and hum of bare lightbulbs, the clatter of cracked teacups -- and he winces, and not just for the souvenirs of the past three weeks. The lancing needling pain in his joints. The dust and the grit still stuck in the roots of his hair, between his teeth. The cramp that returns and returns in his shoulder. 

Somehow he’s still walking, and somehow he’s turning down a familiar alley -- he ducks around the lines of damp laundry by sheer force of habit -- and then, finally, finally, the doors painted muddy green, and the six flights of steps, and the climb that leaves him still tempted to warp straight to his own doorstep.

Fumble, fumble in his pocket -- he drops his keys and the harsh clattering clap of their impact onto the floor makes him wince, makes tears spring into the corner of his eyes -- he stoops to pick them up, groans softly.

And that’s when the door next to his opens.

Blink, blink. 

He finds his voice, suddenly. 

“You’re back,” he says, and he winces, but not for the pure pointlessness of the words.

He winces because Libertus is standing right there on his own stoop and he’s -- alive, he’s on his feet, and he still looks half-drowned, half-broken, and that’s not just because of the bandages still winding around both of his shoulders, spanning the upper half of his body, shifting with his breaths.

But he’s there: he hadn’t been there when Nyx had deployed. His door had been closed and locked. 

He’s there, alive, shadows deepening under his eyes. Stubble creeping down to his throat, and his hair in need of a buzz and a trim, and the white undershirt clinging alarmingly to his sides, to his suddenly-visible ribs. 

He’s there, on the stoop of his flat, looking at Nyx with an odd shadow winging across his face -- that melts away into a small, sweet smile.

And his small sweet response, as inane as Nyx’s own words had been: “So’re you.”

Nyx is still so, so, so grateful when he retrieves his keys and then -- as he’s closing in with his arms weary and spread wide, Libertus collides with him, weight of relief against the shivering beat of his heart.

Before he knows it he’s being pulled into the dingy flat that looks -- a lot like his, really. Cramped corners. Bedframe, rusty and narrow, and the sagging mattress atop, and the many-times-mended sheets in their faded river-current stripes. Half-broken crate and a very neat pile of very pretty dishes, flowering patterns of blue against a mottled bone-white. Cutlery and teacups, every single object mismatched, none to make up even one set. A stack of boots and coat and the various bits and bobs to go with his uniform, a lot like Nyx’s and a lot unlike, because Libertus carries practical things around with him, like a belt made of loops to carry extra (small, plain) knives with, and a bag lined and pocketed for potion bottles and first-aid kits. 

But it’s the flask that’s shoved practically into his face, and he heaves a sigh of relief as he lets himself collapse at last, onto the narrow margin of floor between the bed and the dishes -- he dislodges a book as he goes, and he guiltily replaces it on Libertus’s pillows -- and the first burning sip from the flask leaves him breathless and glad and -- 

Sob, he’s sobbing, he’s curling in on himself and he’s trying to catch his breath, trying to swallow, trying to laugh.

Libertus’s voice from very close by, a little overhead: “Sound of home, innit.”

“Something like that,” Nyx hears himself say, words shredding at him like blades, but he’s relieved to have freed them, relieved for the tears falling from his eyes. “I -- I hate this place when I’m here. Or I hate next door when I’m there, but coming back here, it’s another story entirely.”

“Yep.”

He doesn’t whine -- he doesn’t! -- when the flask is taken away from him -- but in its place Libertus is offering him something wrapped in crinkling coarse brown paper. Opening it -- he smells rich grainy sweetness, something like a jam and something like a custard. The bread is limp and a little soggy, but he can’t mind, not when he pokes at it and his finger comes away glistening with butter. “What?”

“I heard,” and Libertus is laughing softly. 

He looks up, and the grin is so familiar and so heart-stopping: so many sharp edges in Libertus, that he can’t possibly count them all. Rough good humor, and something that almost looks like pride, and the readiness of someone preparing to play all manner of practical jokes on him -- the same someone preparing to yell tactical suggestions in the very teeth-cracking midst of a battle. 

“I haven’t even had time to tell -- them -- yet,” he mutters, and then there’s nothing else he wants to do but to hide the tremble, the tic in his cheek, so he applies himself to his bread, to its heavy sugar-grainy filling, the melted butter that runs in a small stream from the corner of his mouth and he licks it up in a hurry.

“Food first. They’ll understand. You want another one?”

“Not unless you’ve already had yours,” he counters, instantly.

“I can always get more,” he hears Libertus say, even as there’s a scrape and he’s getting back to his feet. Clank of an icebox-lid, small clack of things being moved around, and then Nyx is blinking at the square container that just barely overflows the palm of his hand. “Made that yesterday, should still be good.”

“Why are you cooking?” he asks, even as he opens the container, even as he reaches in with his bare fingers for the dumplings crammed inside. Translucent pale-gray skins coming apart in long thin shreds -- he lets the first one melt on his tongue, tastes meat and spices and pepper -- the juices of the filling -- and then he crams one of the dumplings whole into his mouth. 

“You expect me to -- lie around doing nothing?”

“Yes. Medic’s orders, doctor’s orders,” he says around his mouthful.

“What? I can’t hear you. Uncivilized.”

He rolls his eyes as Libertus sits down next to him -- with a fork in hand and his own container, Nyx is pleased to note. He squints at the contents and thinks he spots chopped hard-boiled eggs, shreds of cheese, raggedly diced vegetables, bits of meat.

It’s easy, then, to eat quietly, slowly, safely next to him, and Nyx feels the tension of the weeks leach out of his feet at last, out of his locked elbows, his tensed wrists, and he’s the one who gets up to navigate the bottles washed clean of their labels, lined up in neat rows next to the icebox. Cold tea, cold brew, and he hands two to Libertus, keeps the other one for himself.

“Thanks.”

“Should be me saying that,” he says, after a second, longer pull off the bottle -- and idly he digs his rank-stripe out of the smallest interior pocket of his coat. Hands it over. “Since you didn’t even let me have the pleasure of telling you.”

“Kept tellin’ you and tellin’ you, it was only a matter of time. Even Lucian shitheads get it right every now and then. Yeah?”

Black-and-gold stripes against Libertus’s fingers, and the thin thread of crystal-blue almost hidden in the narrow stitching. “You’re not seriously expecting me to sew this on for you, though.”

“No,” and Nyx snorts, a little, and picks up the last dumpling in the container. Chews. Swallows. He’s listing back heavily against the bed by the time he’s done. “Just letting you know what it looks like.”

“Gloating! How bastardish of you!”

“Idiot,” and he shoves at Libertus’s shoulder, or tries to. He’s tired, all of a sudden. He’s completely worn out. Sleep is already tugging insistently on the edges of his mind, of his senses. “You have to know what it looks like so when you get one, you won’t be surprised.”

“Me, an officer -- get out of here,” Libertus says, but he’s chuckling as he says it -- and not in a way to dismiss, either.

Nyx hopes, and so: 

“I will,” he says, and he gets to his feet -- wobbles and catches himself on the end of the bed -- and he takes the rank-stripe back and turns it over, thoughtfully, once. “I’ll go show this to them.”

“Say hello for me.”

“You know I will. Dinner tomorrow?”

“You’re buying.” Libertus is licking his fingers, is getting up easily, is sitting down on the edge of his bed.

There’s an odd pull somewhere between Nyx’s chest and belly, and it seems to be hooked to Libertus, and -- he turns away and ignores it. “Of course I’m buying.”

Out one door, and through another -- he doesn’t drop the keys this time.

He does lay the rank-stripe carefully onto the makeshift table leaning against his own bed: and there’s nothing on the table but a piece of clean vivid red cloth, the bottom edge still sporting a thin chaining line of dark-purple embroidery. Ragged stitches that can’t compare to the machined obsessive neatness of the rank-stripe, but he runs caressing fingertips over them all the same, and then he bows his head before the photograph in its polished frame, its clean glass. 

“Made it back again, mom, Selena. Good to see you. They promoted me because -- because I lived and the guy who was supposed to be giving me orders didn’t, and I gave orders because he died in my arms.” He coughs, remembering the phantom weight of blood drying on his hands. “I came back. And people still seem happy to see me come back. So, so, I wish you were here, and happy to see me come back.”

Tears, dropping onto his knees. 

He lets these fall, even as he finishes his prayers, even he wearily shucks his layers of battlefield grime, his smelly boots, his sweat-layered shirt and trousers and socks. 

He’s curled into his sheet and his pillow and his blanket, trying to empty his mind, and then he adds: “Libertus says hi. I think he misses you too.”

He thinks he hears a soft rumbling soothing mutter coming in through the wall that he shares with the other man, and that’s the last thing he hears before he finally drops into sleep.

/////

“It’s bad isn’t it.”

He nods, even when the movement makes fresh blood trickle down his neck, pooling unwelcome heat in his shirt-collars, the rusting-copper smell of it filling his throat with bile. “Really fucking bad, yeah.”

“At least we know the others were on the way out.”

He nods again. “If they stop being stupid, if they listen to Crowe, they’ll get out alive.”

“Oh that’s a relief then. I don’t have to have them on my conscience. I feel obliged to have them on my conscience.”

He almost, almost makes it all the way to a laugh. “Scrape them off the soles of your feet then, I don’t know why you bother.”

He knows, he actually and truthfully knows, and the really terrible thing is, he thinks he can’t even remember which one of them had done it first: had he taken all of the others under his wing, under his care, even as they all ran for their lives, even as they left behind the flames and the ashes of their home islands? Had he gathered them and cut himself on all of their sharp broken bleeding edges, had he gathered them and taught them how to run together and stay alive and look after each other?

Or was it Libertus -- who, after all, had had the entirely thankless and entirely immense responsibility of dragging him, Nyx, out of the embers of his house and the bodies that had been in that house? Had Libertus taken him out of hell and nursed him back into life and the rotten tooth-and-claw longing to live? -- to live in order to fight, to sow the seeds of hatred and fear and turn them into a harvest of fury and vengeance and -- here, here, blood dripping into his eye and he’s being turned again, and the hands that tie a fresh loop of bandage on around his forehead are only rough with knife-calluses, with broken battered leather to cushion the knuckles.

And Nyx cries, silently, without a sob, and he gets to his feet and tastes the bitter salt of his own tears, and he pulls his cowl back up, hiding his eyes and his grimace from view. “Might as well find the heart of this place,” he says, and he nods toward the locked-and-barriered door, the shield that’s still restlessly shifting against it, magic that isn’t his own flaring and flaring in his veins that he arcs toward Libertus, replenishing his strength. 

Libertus’s eyes, widening, with disbelief and then -- slowly -- understanding, as cold and as shattered as ashes. “You want to do the most damage.”

“Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do anyway?” He doesn’t hide the throb in his words. Stony rasp, defeat and that certain vindictive ruthlessness that he’d learned to choke down with half-portions of military rations. The acrid taste of beer, that he’d learned to hate from his first times drinking it, when someone had infused healing herbs and healing magic into it and then forced it into him -- so he could get up again, so he could fight again, a thirteen-year-old soldier, needle-lines of ink still hurting and burning in his skin. “Isn’t that what we’re living for anyway? So does it matter if we don’t come back?”

“Does it matter if we live or die, taking out the fucking Nifs? -- No.”

He’s still crying even as he hauls Libertus into a more or less upright stable standing position.

He knows all too well that rage that shivers and shimmers in the undertones of Libertus’s voice -- he knows it, he hears it, he heeds it -- he hates it.

Hates that Libertus, right now, is nothing more than the rage that he carries around with him, souring his words, souring the clusters of lines in his face -- his seams, his scars, his tattoos. 

He’ll carry all the weight of the rage of Galahd -- chain of islands, the hundreds that had been inhabited, the thousands that had not been -- archipelago of lives, of children and families and hope shattered by the brutal swords and guns of the invading Niflheim armies -- he’ll carry all that weight and hoard it jealously for himself, or he’d like to, because there were so many others who could live otherwise without its sickening sweet scent in their words, in their lungs, in their breath.

He’d like to keep it all and not let out to poison the others. Any of the others. Crowe, Tredd, Pelna, already hurrying to safety -- or so he hopes. 

He’d like to hold it all and not let any drop of it go. Not if it means Libertus has to taste it, has to drink it down, killing him with every moment, killing him with every heartbeat.

But he can’t -- it’s already in Libertus -- who’s lost his cowl so all his hatred is right there in his face, in the movements of his hands as he casts one spell after another. Magic, hatred-touched, washing rough over Nyx’s skin: healing, supporting, defending.

He chokes on it, demands the next: “Don’t stop there.”

Flash of fear in those feral eyes. “The next thing I’ve got is.”

“I know what it is, and I need it right now.”

“Nyx.”

“Don’t make me make it an order, Lib,” he says, very gently, for all the harsh barbs of the magic already crawling along his skin. “I’ll do it. I need it. You run behind me and make sure they can’t recover anything.”

“And, what?” 

Hand, hard grasp around his wrist, and even with the buffering strength already in him he can feel his bones grind together. 

“What,” Libertus is demanding. “You trying to make sure I won’t be able to recover anything of you?”

“You still have everything I left behind,” he says, and he’s not sure he doesn’t just mean it for the sparse scatter of scavenged and saved belongings he’s got in his flat. The red cloth, the faded photograph of a mother and the child in her arms, the boy at her side torn and scorched away. His rank-stripes, his spare kukri, the treasure-trove of memory-beads he keeps in a cubbyhole in the corner-wall next to the door. “You still have anything I’ve got right now.”

“No I don’t!”

He does rock back onto his heels then. “Libertus.”

“I’ll go with you,” is all the answer he gets. Not a shout, but still as intense as the immediately preceding words. “I’ll go with you or I’m not going and neither are you. I’ll make you not go -- I can put you in stasis, you know that.”

“That’s why you’re the dangerous one,” and Nyx wrenches his wrist free -- but he does it so that he can take the hand that’s still shaking with rage. Libertus’s hand, rough leather, broken bits of bone and armor and wall and door, shimmer of only protective magic that creeps up Nyx’s arm because of the contact between them.

With his other hand he forces the shield forward -- magical shriek high and grating in his ears, the wall and the door that they had been hiding behind collapsing with human-like groans -- he throws a knife forward as soon as he can see some kind of twisting path, rubble and sullen ravenous flames, and he feels the crack and the cry of the world vanishing from him and for a moment he thinks he sees the flash of Libertus, warping, adjacent in their blank falling flight, moving from place to place in the Niflheim facility that’s already on its last legs, that’s already shattering and crumbling around them.

“Door!”

Which he plows into with his own actual shoulder.

Door that leads into a corridor.

The base is quiet, suddenly -- it’s like stepping from one world into another -- from ashes and broken steel and glass, into dry air and the powerful waft of -- 

Next to him, Libertus coughs, covers his mouth and nose. “D’you smell that?”

He does, with the next breath. “Yeah. Like -- sterile things.”

“Steel, antiseptic, saline drips,” Libertus is muttering. “No one said anything about -- hospitals here.”

Nyx shudders, remembering long-ago mission briefings. “No. This isn’t a hospital, I don’t think. This is the -- the other thing, the opposite thing -- ” 

Wide eyes. Anguished understanding. He gets it, so quickly, and Nyx can’t shield him from that terrifying knowledge. “The other thing, then, the thing you were trying to forget -- ”

“Come on,” he mutters, roughly, or else he’ll wind up emptying his stomach onto the tiles at their feet. “We’ll deal with it.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” he hears Libertus say, and he silently blesses him for getting the words out between them.

Crackle and hum -- there’s still power here, the lights are still turning themselves on as they approach the other door -- which opens with only a push of Nyx’s hand.

“Because that’s reassuring,” he mutters, on the heels of something that sounds very much like a prayer and very much like a curse, long guttural sound coming from Libertus.

Empty steel tables, when they enter the next room. Large, large space, a ceiling that disappears into shadows, metal tiles beneath their feet that squeal with every step.

“Is it just me or -- blood,” Libertus is saying, quietly, angrily. “I smell blood. Not you. Not yours.”

He has to catch his breath, but he almost chokes on it. “I smell it too.”

The far wall, when they finally get close enough, is occupied by a dozen upright cylinders. Each is filled with -- clear liquid, and a complicated armature of black steel, black cables. Black sludge in the bottom of the cylinders -- each one of which is taller than either of them, once they’re actually within touching distance. 

Monitor, beeping black and green and red at them, next to each cylinder. Values gone to zero, all except for the last one -- which is half-broken off, the pieces scattered in a vague line leading away from the cylinders, the wall that props them up -- 

“Before we go,” and Libertus is pointing to the bottoms of the cylinders. “Call it a hunch. How can we get rid of that without spreading it all over the place?”

The thought races through him, like lightning, like inspiration. “Imagine the most powerful flame,” he says, just as quietly. “The most powerful fire, in the smallest spark you can make.”

“Makes sense,” he hears Libertus say.

He does six of the cylinders, including the one with the broken monitor: the sludge vanishes into ash within its confines, and then into nothing -- burned into all its components, and hopefully out of the world.

Libertus does the rest, and Nyx can hear him swearing with each spark.

He shares out the contents of a restorative, pouring half of it onto his own head and the rest into Libertus’s shaking hand.

“Ready,” he hears Libertus mutter, after.

So he draws one knife and follows the trail of broken circuits, of shredded wire, into one of the other corners of the huge room -- and then, there’s a quiet click.

Nyx doesn’t think -- he just throws up the barrier around Libertus -- who growls at him and pulls out his own knives -- he goes forward, unshielded. Stops just before the shadows of that corner. “Come on out.”

The sound that he hears in response is entirely unexpected, and almost entirely obscene, given the context of this room, this base, the sludge in the cylinders.

Again he hears it.

A sob, a whimper, far too small.

He summons another spark, and this time holds that flame out in the palm of his hand, and says, “Let us help.”

“Don’t shoot!”

Libertus is already moving past him, and Nyx barely side-steps the barrier-force shimmering back into place. 

Swoop of Libertus into that corner, thud of something heavy hitting the floor and Libertus’s leg moving, kicking that weight away -- dimly Nyx registers that the weight is in the shape of a gun, because he’s more focused on the fact that Libertus steps out of the shadow holding --

Holding a boy.

A boy, his white-blond hair cut cruelly short. Track marks all up and down the spindly arms -- he does almost heave bile up, then -- the boy succeeds in dropping away from Libertus, tries to run, and his back is scarred in the exact lines of the armatures inside the cylinders -- 

Power, rage, hatred, burning through Nyx as he summons the power of the storm, the lightning that lives in his veins, and he hurls those roaring bolts towards the other wall -- broken song of shattering glass, scorched steel -- 

The boy stops, drops to his knees -- stares at the destruction for a long moment and then -- he begins to wail.

This time when Libertus picks him up he’s limp and breathless from his sobs, he’s no more than a shaking thin frame, skin and bones and his tears, and the surgical scrub-shirt that’s open in the back and far too big for him.

Wordlessly, Nyx shrugs off his coat and wraps it around the boy -- who doesn’t seem to care about the bloodstains, about the ripped and torn hems, about the weight of its braids and buttons and clasps -- who keeps crying, and crying, till he can only gasp.

“Now we need to get out of here.”

He meets Libertus’s eyes, pinched with worry at the corners. “How?”

“Good question.”

Hiccup. “Exit.”

Ragged reedy voice, ragged reedy word. 

He watches Libertus look at the boy in his arms, hears Libertus clear his throat. “Where is the exit?”

“Door,” the boy says, pointing at another section of wall. “Hidden.”

Nyx doesn’t have to say he’s taking point -- he simply warps ahead, scouting, trying to find the way out.

Once, he motions Libertus to run ahead of him -- and that gives him an opportunity to meet the boy’s fearful forthright gaze, the boy’s eyes, vivid blue-violet in his wan face.

He can’t smile, he can’t laugh; he has no words with which to reassure the boy.

So he nods, instead, hard and decisive. 

After a long moment, the boy turns away and hides his face in Libertus’s shirt again.

/////

He doesn’t know why he’s looking up at nonexistent stars and the blue sheen of Insomnia’s Wall as he makes his way home. Doesn’t know why he’s squinting up through the faint fluttering fall of tiny snowflakes, doesn’t know why he’s not looking at his armful of packages or the container of his takeout dinner -- but looking up is what makes him see that the lights have been turned on in Libertus’s flat. Sparkle of white fairy lights looped onto the outside edge of the window-sill, and a small cluster of star-shaped ornaments -- and Nyx knows from personal experience that all four of those stars are lopsided.

Four stars, smoothed-over, baked-set, the fingerprints of their maker blurred away. 

So he doesn’t even bother taking out his own keys as he gets to the right landing; he just knocks on Libertus’s door, using his own elbow, and then his own shoulder. “Let me in I’m cold,” he calls.

“Are you trying to break my house?” And underneath the massive grin, the mocking lilt in the words, the strange spectacle of a scarf trimmed in tinsel -- a shy, small laugh, and freckles still surrounding a less-wary smile.

Libertus in the doorway, snatching boxes clean out of Nyx’s hands -- and right behind him, still sort of angled in the lee of his body, is the boy they’d rescued from the Niflheim research facility -- the boy who’s now calling himself Prompto.

He smiles, a little, when he sees that Libertus has left him exactly one package to cross the threshold with: and it’s the box that has Prompto’s name on it. 

“Make yourself at home,” he hears Libertus drawl, snickering as he bends over a pot of something on the camp stove in the corner. 

The flat seems both tinier and larger than ever, to Nyx’s weary but glad eyes: two beds now crammed into the corner, one of them piled with little handmade plush toys in the shapes of cactuars and tonberries and chocobos. Boxes of clothes neatly folded away and tucked beneath each bed, so there’s room for a child’s writing desk next to the window -- and Nyx glances at it, sees crayon-marks on the wall, on the sheet of paper that covers the entire desk, and he nods at those lines in primary colors. “Tell me what you’re making?”

Prompto sits up far too straight in his chair -- then falls back into a slouch and tips his head towards his right shoulder, and the freckles on his face make up the lines drawn into a considering frown. 

Nyx takes a seat on the floor, and waits him out, and hums to himself.

“That’s a nice song,” he hears Prompto say, after a moment. 

“Ask Lib to teach it to you,” he says, with a small smile, trying to encourage the boy to talk. “He has a better voice than I do.”

“He does.”

Nyx laughs, quietly. “At least you’re honest, kid.”

“Not a kid,” Prompto returns. 

Then Prompto gets up from his chair and stands next to him -- stands over him. “I wanted to draw trees, but they’re hard to find in this place.”

“Cities, huh,” Nyx says, and he thinks of the Citadel, and the gardens scattered up and down the various levels. “I wish I could take you to the place where I work, sometimes. I’m not always there. But when I go I try to visit some of the gardens. Some of them are just for flowers, and there’s one or two just for vegetables -- ”

“Libertus is making vegetable stew tonight,” he hears Prompto say.

“I like vegetable stew.”

“It’s all right. Libertus says it will put more meat on my bones.”

“He generally knows what he’s talking about, when it comes to food,” Nyx says, and he wings a salute in the stove’s direction.

When he glances over, Libertus laughs at him, and returns the salute with his ladle. 

By the time Prompto’s decided to amuse himself by peering out the window and humming something else entirely, Libertus has already cleared the little dining table -- Nyx spots things like a sewing kit, and smiles to himself -- and set out three bowls and spoons. “Dinner.”

Prompto breaks off in mid-song, and says “Thank you,” and takes his bowl from the table to his desk.

Nyx sits, too, and says, “Maybe you should take this.”

He doesn’t, doesn’t look Libertus in the eyes, when he passes over the gift he’s picked up for the boy. 

“Why?” 

In that one word Prompto does sound like the frightened nameless child they’d taken from the facility. 

“Because it’s the holidays,” Nyx says, holding his wavering gaze. “Don’t you think you should be getting lots of gifts?”

“I don’t have anything to give. Not to you, not to Libertus, not to,” his mouth works as he looks back at the plush toys on his bed. “The ones who gave me those soft animals.”

“I’d love a crayon drawing,” Nyx says, after a moment. “Maybe you can give me a drawing of your favorite tree.”

“Sap.” But Libertus’s comment is so quiet and so soft around the edges, and Nyx has to cover his smile with the back of his hand. 

“Sure, but you’re a bigger sap than I am.”

“Can I really open this?” Prompto asks, after a moment. He shakes the box and Nyx chuckles outright, grateful that there’s nothing fragile in this particular gift. 

“It has your name on it and everything,” he hears Libertus say. “So it’s yours.”

“...Later. After dinner.”

Nyx serves the second helping of vegetable stew, and then gets up for the tea, though it’s funny when Prompto looks in his bottle and makes a face and holds it back out to him. “Sugar please.”

“Little heathen,” he hears Libertus mutter, and it’s all he can do not to spill the tea for laughing at both of them.

Eventually it takes Libertus’s presence next to the small desk for Prompto to tear the pretty paper away from the package, to pull off the label and the little foil-ribbon to reveal half a dozen charcoal pencils in a tin, and a small flat sketchbook. 

“Well,” and Libertus’s smile is soft and kind around the edges, and for once it’s directed at Nyx. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“I didn’t know pencils could smell nice,” Prompto says, and he takes one out of the tin, and it’s the right size and length to fit in his small hand. “Thank you Nyx.”

“You’re welcome, Prompto,” he says.

“But if he gets lost in one of his art-states I wash my hands of him,” and Libertus only sounds fond. “You take care of him then, Nyx.”

“Sure,” and it’s easy to agree, when Prompto smiles shyly, and divides that smile between him and the pencils.

Libertus hands him a bottle of beer after a while, when all they can hear is Prompto muttering to himself as he plays with his crayons and his new pencils, and he gratefully drinks half in one go. “I needed that.”

“You looked like it.” Creak and screech of the chair as it’s turned back to front. “So.”

“So I heard,” Nyx says, and tweaks at his rank-stripe. “Yours?”

“Got it delivered here, and -- I don’t get it, why are they giving me one when I’m not in the field right now?”

“So you think supplies and logistics isn’t something for an officer to get involved in?”

“They’re the ones who need to work on it,” he hears Libertus say, quietly vehement. “They’re the ones the shop people listen to.”

“Now you’re one of them. The officers, not the shop people.” He drinks the rest of his beer in smaller, more leisurely swallows. “Make sure you find a way to smuggle your flask in. You’re going to need it.”

“You’re not trying to keep me off the front lines are you?”

Nyx blinks. “Can you tell me where the last logistics officer was when she died?”

Frown, lowering, onto that dear familiar expressive face. “How would I know? She didn’t die at the Citadel did she?”

“She died in the field,” Nyx says, somberly. “She was running supplies into Duscae. Ambush. You’re going to be even more of a target than I am, believe me.”

“I thought the Nifs would only be looking for a hero like you.”

He’d make a face if the beer didn’t taste like home. “I’m just good out in the field, you’d be good for shoring everyone’s spirits up. Tell me which one would hurt the Glaives more, if lost.”

“Except that I can’t afford that. Not any more. Not with him,” and Libertus’s voice drops on the last word and Nyx knows exactly who he’s talking about. “That kid. He needs you, and me.”

“So I’m trying to be a little less reckless too,” Nyx says. “I need to get back here, even if -- sometimes I can’t stand being alone.”

“Which is precisely what you’re not, any more. Not alone, I mean.”

“Not just the Glaives,” he agrees. “I meant, Prompto. And you.” 

That was easy to say, he thinks.

And so is the clench, gentle, warm, strong: the hand wrapping around his.

“Nyx.”

“I finally understood why you were yelling at me, that day,” he all but whispers. He hopes Libertus can hear every emotion in his words. Affection, familiarity, kindness. A sweet and tender leaning-in. The relief that comes with being able to rely on someone; the strength and the determination that comes from wanting to be relied on in return. The memory of whispering childhood secrets to each other. The quiet longing for one person’s happiness. The coaxed-along sort of hope, sort of yearning, sort of need. 

“Took you so damn long to get it.” And of course, that razor-quick humor, that slashing good cheer, equal parts infuriating and upsetting and -- sweet, is the completely unexpected and familiar word for the smile haunting the corner of Libertus’s mouth. “Been trying to get you to understand for -- for years.”

“Busy,” he says, trying to sound contrite. “I was trying to live. You were trying to help me stay alive.”

“I know, Nyx. I know. So there’s nothing to forgive.”

“Except this,” and he makes sure Prompto’s distracted, looking down at his dark-stained hands, before pressing a kiss to Libertus’s smile. 

“Only if you’re not going to go any further than that.”

He feels something glad and warm and bright leap in his chest, almost like magic -- prickling, in a way that makes him think of being safe, being not-alone. “I’ll do pretty much anything you want, but -- ” and he inclines his head towards the boy at the desk.

“He goes to sleep after eight-thirty. And -- maybe we’re lucky, too, he finally learned to sleep through the night again.”

Nyx winces for the memory of hearing the echoes of Prompto’s night-terrors, one wall and one door away. “I’m glad he can sleep.”

“I’m glad we got him,” he hears Libertus say. “I’m glad we got out of there alive.”

“Here’s to the next, and to the next, and to the next,” and Nyx thinks he’s not just talking about sorties, about deployments.

“I’ll drink to that.”

The last drops of beer are warm on his mouth, hoppy and bitter-rich.

Libertus leans against him, whole and warm, eyes closing, and it’s easy to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him in -- closer and closer still.

And just for once, nothing hurts.


	2. two boys

There’s a process to locking the front door, and he’s grateful that they’d shown him how to do it, as many times as he’d asked them to go over the steps in the process until he was almost certain that he knew what was going on, until he was almost certain that he understood why the steps had to be followed in the order that he’d been shown: and so he reaches for the doorknob. Tries to turn it a quarter-circle to the left -- tries, and fails, and it just slips out of his hand, which means he can safely try to jiggle it in the other direction, and it stops moving then.

He nods to himself, a little: that’s the first set of steps and he’s sure he’s gotten them right, and he’ll need the copper-colored key to release the doorknob from its locked position.

The other key that he carries around with him is made of plain blue-edged steel, and he pushes it into the deadlock: this lock has a different mechanism, and he’s had to learn the correct way of turning the key, to make sure that the lock is properly secured. Half-turn to the right until he hears the tumblers catching, quiet firm clack, and then he has to turn the key the other way to take it out at all.

Last step, the vital step: he leans his shoulder against the door and tries to push in.

The door is a solid secured mass that doesn’t move, doesn’t even give an inch in response to his weight and that’s how he knows he’s done it all right.

Red chain snaking from a loop inside the pocket of his shorts, and it ends with the large ring from which his two keys hang. He hasn’t quite stopped hoping he’ll find a chocobo charm that’s small enough to fit in his pocket, and soft enough to pinch in his fingers: but he hasn’t had the time to look around in the stalls all up and down the street. He does have a little pocket money saved up, and Nyx has outright told him to give his name, Nyx’s name, to the store owner, and they’ll give it to him and Nyx will pay for it at another time.

But he doesn’t understand how that works, because he knows people have to give money if they want to take something away from a stall: things like candy, or those meat-and-vegetable skewers that he sometimes likes to eat for dinner, or the colorful little sturdy books that he keeps in stacks underneath his bed.

Does that make Nyx’s name something like money?

The sun shines on the street and makes him feel warm, and it’s a nice feeling to have after several days of rain -- although he thinks he prefers the cool wind of a rainy day, because then he doesn’t have to squirm away from his shirt as it sticks to the sweat on his skin.

His favorite patch of sidewalk, near the store where Libertus likes to buy spices and other things that he likes to use in cooking, is occupied, and he stops and smiles and bends over, hands on his knees -- he wants to touch the kitten, small and black and sounding much bigger than it really is as it snores, but it’s draped over the back of its huge dog companion. Short white fur, and far too many scars, but the dog looks happy, and he thinks maybe the cat would, too, if it were awake.

He has to smile instead, and the dog opens its mouth and lets its pink tongue roll out, and it looks like it’s smiling.

Prompto waves at them, and turns the corner, and -- now he’s thinking about starting to run, so he does, and running is easy, and now he can go for a longer time without having to stop and catch his breath.

Far enough that he crosses through a set of open gates and past a group of tall, tall trees.

When he looks up at them he can see all the shadows of their leaves, dancing in the wind and rustling far overhead, and when he looks he wonders, again, why the topmost branches of the trees don’t cross each other. Why do they leave spaces between? He’ll have to remember to ask Libertus about that, and maybe one of the others the next time they come to have dinner. He thinks it might be Amira, he thinks that might be her name, the one who grows all kinds of flowers and smaller plants around her home.

He’s looking up into the sunlight and the leaves and there’s someone moving nearby, someone coming closer. Black hair, black shirt, dirty shoes.

So Prompto turns, and grins, and says, softly, “Hi.”

“Hi,” and the boy with the blue eyes and the walking-stick is almost next to him, is looking up at the trees too. “What’s up there?”

“I was just looking at the leaves,” he says.

“Sometimes leaves are interesting,” the boy says, “but I like them when they’re all different colors, not all green like that.”

“That’s -- not gonna be tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that.”

“I know. Have to wait.”

There’s a hand in his, then, and he smiles and looks at the boy again. “Hi Noct.”

“Hi Prom.”

“What do you feel like doing today?”

Shoulders on the move, and Noctis tipping his head from side to side for a moment. Frowning at the same time. “I don’t know. I just didn’t want to be in school again. I already know what they’re teaching me. I already answered all the questions in the book they gave me. So I don’t want to think about those things.”

“But I don’t know about them,” Prompto says, and he spots a bench underneath one of the tallest trees, and points toward it. “Can we sit there?”

“Yeah, come on.”

Noctis walks slowly, the kind of slow that Prompto enjoys, because it means they can look around at things, and because today it means -- “Stop,” he says, very softly.

Noctis has very blue eyes. “Why?”

“I’ve been watching that butterfly,” he says, and he points to the flash of yellow on the wind that’s been circling them for some time now. “I think it wants to land on you.”

“I’m not a flower.” But Noctis is starting to smile as he says it, and he stops, and holds still.

Prompto doesn’t know how to call a butterfly closer -- he can do that for kittens, and for some birds, but not for something as small as this, as pretty as this, and he can only wait, and hope.

“Oh, oh, not me but,” and Noctis’s smile turns into a laugh, that he quickly covers up with the same hand that’s still holding the walking-stick.

“No, but -- ” Prompto laughs, too, because the butterfly suddenly lands onto his wrist and it tickles, when it walks around on him and folds its wings straight and up and it goes still.

He’s still very careful when he moves that hand, when he brings it up to his own eye level. “Come and look,” he whispers to Noctis.

Who presses in at his side, and looks closely, too.

Noctis is close enough that he can smell the scents of fruits in his hair, and something that reminds him of sticky spun sugar.

On his wrist, the butterfly spreads its wings again, and he gets a good look at the different shades of yellow, the spots of black scattered across the lower wings.

“Looks like you,” he hears Noctis say. “Spots on its wings, like your freckles.”

“I’m not a butterfly,” he says, but he giggles all the same, and Noctis hasn’t really stopped smiling since the butterfly landed, he thinks.

“Not a flower either. I think it was looking for something to eat.”

“I’m not butterfly food,” and for some reason he thinks that’s funny, and he laughs and laughs, until the yellow butterfly takes off towards another, shorter tree.

Noctis only pulls a horrible face at him and starts walking again, towards the bench. 

When he catches his breath again, he can see that Noctis has been carrying a small bag all along, and out of it he pulls -- 

Prompto feels his eyes grow wider. “Your friend made those. The one who cooks like Lib does.”

“I’m supposed to be eating these at school.”

Noctis drops the thing into his hand and he hurriedly turns it over so he can look at it, properly. A shell of pastry, that drops flakes and crumbs onto his skin. Something like cream in the middle of the shell, but it’s burned in several places, maybe not in a bad way, because it doesn’t smell bad at all. 

It smells like sugar, that’s all: and he sniffs the edge of the shell and takes a careful bite out of it. He doesn’t even have to chew that much. The pastry melts on his tongue, and against his teeth, and he swallows the soft edges and tries the cream, too.

“This is good,” he says, but maybe he’s too quiet because Noctis doesn’t answer him, not right away. 

Noctis is looking at his walking-stick like he’s sad.

So he crams the rest of the sweet into his mouth and swallows the cream, and the dark spots, and pokes Noctis’s wrist, very carefully, with sugar still clinging to his fingertip.

“Yeah.”

Prompto wraps his arm around Noctis’s shoulders, very carefully. 

It’s not the first time, and Noctis is almost shaking at the start of it, but when he stops against Prompto’s shoulder, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“Does it hurt?” Prompto asks, and remembers to keep his voice down.

At home, too, when Lib and Nyx ask questions like that, they speak very softly, with their faces close to each other, like he and Noctis are doing right now.

“I want to -- run, and play in the training room,” he hears Noctis say. “I want to find that fountain in the park near the school, and throw coins into it. Iggy says there’s stories about people throwing coins, making wishes, and those wishes came true. I want to do that, but, cane.”

“You can still walk,” Prompto says. 

“Slowly. That’s boring.”

That makes him feel a little hurt, but he doesn’t pull away, he can’t, because Noctis is still resting against him. “You think it’s boring when I walk slowly through the book shop?”

“Why would you walk slowly through the book shop?”

“Looking at comics. Looking for things to read.”

“I like that. And, and you like the same comics I do, right? So I don’t care if it takes you a long time to look for them.”

“So that’s, that’s not the problem,” he says, and he wishes he could sound like Nyx does, when he’s thinking out loud, when he’s trying to fix something that Prompto can’t see. “Not being bored.”

“You don’t like being bored either,” he hears Noctis say.

“I don’t, but I can do math in my head if I have to be waiting for my dads.”

He sees Noctis pull another horrible face. “Math is easy but I don’t like it.”

“I know,” he says, and tries to get back to what they were talking about. “Walking slowly. That’s the problem, right? You don’t like walking slowly. But you were okay with stopping because of a butterfly. It didn’t do anything to you. It landed on me, but you didn’t go away. You looked at it with me.”

“I want to run. I can’t run because it still hurts me a lot.”

He squeezes Noctis, very gently. “How long before it stops hurting? Sometimes Nyx comes home and he can’t even get out of bed for a week.”

“What does he do, stuck in bed?”

“Sleep,” Prompto says. “He tries to talk to people on the phone but sometimes he just shouts at them. Sometimes he shouts at Lib too, but Lib shouts back at him. I don’t know why they do that.”

“He gets angry because he wants to do things. I get angry because I want to do things and I can’t. Hurts.”

“Nyx’s hurt goes away.”

“Dad’s never did. He’s still hurt. He walks slowly, too.”

Maybe there’s a snag in Noctis’s breathing, then, the way Prompto’s does when he thinks that he might cry.

“You’re scared you’ll never stop feeling hurt,” he says, softly.

“Uh huh.”

That snag is louder.

He tries to hold Noctis. “I want to help you feel not so scared.”

“Sometimes when you’re around I don’t feel scared at all. That’s okay. But sometimes, even if you’re around, or even if Dad’s around, I still can’t stop feeling scared.”

“Yes,” Prompto says, softly.

“Not so much right now. Not so scared.”

“Yes.” He thinks about it, and adds, “I don’t feel very scared when I’m with you, too.”

The answer he gets to that is not in words.

It’s Noctis’s hands, wrapping around his.

He leans his cheek against Noctis’s hair.

When Noctis says, very very quietly, “I wish I could be safe like this,” he just squeezes his hands.

“Hey,” someone says, after a while, and Prompto blinks, and his head feels a little bit heavy, like he’s been sleeping, but when did he fall asleep, and why did he sleep out here? “Hey Prom. Hey Noctis.”

“Lib,” he says, and he smiles, and huddles under the jacket that’s dropped onto his shoulders, onto Noctis’s.

Who yawns next to him and says, “Libertus?”

“Come on to dinner, both of you.”

“Yes,” Prompto says.

“Me too?” he hears Noctis ask, and the snag is still in his voice even after the time they’ve lost sleeping under the trees. 

“I think I said _both of you_ ,” he hears Libertus say.

“Okay.”

Noctis smiles, a little, and holds Prompto’s hand, all the way back to their door.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr at my FFXV sideblog [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or at my main [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/) \-- or, hey, if Tumblr becomes too rotten and we can't talk there any more, there's always Twitter, where I am @ninemoons42.


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